1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the storage of samples, such as the cold storage of biological samples in freezers.
2. Description of the Related Art
Biological samples are collected and stored in many different types of facilities, for a great variety of applications. Such applications include the storage of samples collected during clinical trials in pharmaceutical companies, research samples used in university labs, samples archived in hospitals, samples used in the discovery of biological markers for diagnostic testing, forensic samples from crime or disaster scenes, samples at the Center for Disease Control (CDC), samples for various genetic studies, and so on.
As a result, cold storage systems for biological samples are ubiquitous. Typically, in these systems, each of a large numbers of samples is stored in its own small plastic tube. Tracking of the samples is done by reading handwritten labels or bar codes on the tubes or boxes that hold the tubes. Problems are many, including: poor writing surfaces, little room for extensive information, ice-impaired reading by humans or optical scanners, difficulty locating a particular sample among up to 20,000 or more samples in a typical freezer, loss of records or memory containing information on arrangements of collections, personnel turnover, accidental mixing or spilling of collections, and the inevitable confusion when reorganizing collections for new projects. Addressing these issues is becoming more important as the demands on sample tracking increase.